"This true story of an eleven-year-old boy and his first-time participation in the annual buffalo hunt with the men from his nothern New Mexico village takes place in 1866. Jose Arrellanes lived with his parents and his older brother Pablo in the hamlet of San Miguel, on the Pecos River. Like their neighbors, the family farmed, raising corn, beans, chile, and onions. Each fall they traveled to the Texas Panhandle, to bring down the buffalo, or cibolas, and carry the meat back to their village so that eveyone would have plenty to eat during the long, cold winter."--BOOK JACKET.

Examines the importance of the buffalo in the lore and day-to-day life of the Indian tribes of the Great Plains and describes hunting methods and the uses found for each part of the animal that could not be eaten.

Describes battle of August 5, 1873 between the Pawnee Indians and the Sioux.